


The Waters Still Rising

by FunkyRacoon



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Death, Fluff, M/M, Metaphors, Murder, Soft spoken words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 15:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11234157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyRacoon/pseuds/FunkyRacoon
Summary: "Alright, Hannibal.... you've got me...I'm yours." Will calls to the sky, the moon, anyone who can hear his call.





	The Waters Still Rising

**Author's Note:**

> Uuuh, so this was my submissiom for Radiance, which I didn't get in. Doesn't really matter really, it wasn't my best, so after weeks of delay I decided to post it. Enjoy!

As a boy, Will Graham always knew he was different than most kids. Though he traveled from town to town, jumping around in schools, he could never really...fit in with the other kids. Maybe it was the way he looked, skinny with a mess of curls, or maybe it was his accent. Or, it could be that he saw too much to start from.

He could see through those mask that the adults would it on for their kids, see past the broken promises, and lies. It was distasteful and mentally exhausting for a young not his age, he could never find a way to just shut it off.

No, countless nights he found himself tired and mourning the pains of others. His kind muddled with thoughts that weren't his own.

But there was the ocean.

Yes, the beautiful waves that called to him countless nights and so on. Nights where sleep would elude him, young Will would find himself watching his feet track him back to the ocean. It could be miles away, even a state over, and yet he always found himself walking the length until he was watching his feet sink into the cool sand. So cool, and so relaxing. All the emotions and thought began to just flow out of his body, as the water began to lap at his toes.

The seafoam kissed and licked at his ankles, as he walked deeper into the ocean. His sighs were answered back with the oceans own, for the ocean could understand his pain, his burdens to bare for the far future. He understood why the ocean cried to the moon, a wanting howl of hunger and love. He once cried like that when his father first told him that his mother left, into the nights air and never to return. But now he is silent, groaning and sighing through the days and months.

Just like the ocean.

As he grows, and grows, young Will turns and changes down his paths through life. He watches his father drink himself to sleep,and leave in the morning to work...or drink some more. Will finds himself ridiculed and ignored through school,so he stops trying to be noticed, and starts trying to be a shadow. Following behind the others, a silent creature that waits for the moon to rise to dance with the cripples. They tell him often, 'The moon gives strength to those who want to walk.'

"But I already can walk. Why would I ask such a silly thing?" He asked one day, to the elder woman in a wheelchair. They sat in a dock facing the sunset, watching the colors burst and streak across the sky, such beauty that cannot be tamed.

"You'll understand when you're older, love. But for now, let's just bask in all it's light." She would answer with.

Will would smile, such a rare thing to him he almost forgot what it felt like to be happy, then find himself standing up to catch the fireflies for the old woman. There they would place them in jars, and listen to them sing. A song of joy and adventures, across lands so vast and far, an open works of adventures and heroes. But when the moon came out, Will would always find himself standing at the ocean's edge.

Listening to it's repeating sighs and groans, as it howls for its lost loved.

"Who have you lost, that you so dearly must call to each night?" Will has asked to the seafoam one night. The tides were low, the moon high and bright as he floated in the cool water. Her arms outstretched to him, holding him above the water, so he wouldn't drown.

'Lost and lonely, I find myself. Yearning to reunited will a loved one I have lost, so long ago.' It calls back.

"Why don't you just move on? Can't you just find a new lover?"

He hears the water slash, and chuckle at his childish questions. It will continue to sigh, groaning as it reaches higher and higher to the moon, but never close to touching. 'You will understand, when you are older.'

He doesn't think he will.

Will has seen the pain and hurt that love can cause someone. Like nails, taking down your back, while being held close to the one you once loved. Oh, the pain a loss can bring, he has felt it once, and sworn to never love again.

But a child never keeps their promise.

~~

When they meet it is a quick flash of tongues and anger, mostly on Will's part. He doesn't pay attention to the man near him as he snarls and snaps, like a cornered animal. It isn't until later when the man brings food as a peace offering does he settle down, and listen to what the man says. He listens as the man speaks with an open heart.

Surrounded by thorns and snakes.

He says that everyone think Will is fragile, a chipped up China plate, waiting to be used on those "special" occasions. Isn't he right, Will can see himself breaking away. He sees it at night, when the night sweats are at their worse, and he has to wash off the remaining nightmares. He'll look up at his reflection, and watch as the pieces fall out of place. So broken and old as he is, it's surprising that anyone ever takes him out anymore.

But Hannibal sees differently, he sees past all of Will's fragile chips and missing pieces. He looks through that cloaked dark thing inside of him, and he sees.

"The mongoose I need to keep the snakes from under my house."

Hannibal recognized Will as the mongoose under the house. The wily mammal that fearlessly battles the snake, that bites the neck of a serpent even as the venom sinks in.

Will preened at flattery. Preened at being envisioned heroic instead of broken. He had chewed in the words, the bitter sweetness all wrapped up on his tongue. It felt right.

But he couldn't swallow the taste.

"I don't find you that interesting."

"You will."

It wasn't until later did he realize Hannibal was the cobra.

~~

See. See. See.

The last words of a ghost whisper into his ear, and shake and shatter his mind. So hot and sweet the flickering flame that burns into his head. Bright and harsh, grating and the pain, so much to bare, so much to lose. And oh does he lose a lot.

Time slips from his fingers, and the world muddles from clarity to blurs of colors. He tells Hannibal that he thinks this is it, I'm going to lose my mind and it's going to be Jack's fault. Hannibal had smiled, and poured more wine for him. "Finish up your meal, Will." And like a good boy, he listened.

A weight on his back, heavy and warm. The stag steers closer to his heels as the works turns dark, it burns as he screams,and it screams as he burns. Animals start to mourn in the corner of his ear, and he breaks a while into his chimney. He finds a missing piece of himself,and kisses a woman he thought could understand him. Alana looks sadly at him, and the piece goes slipping out of his hand.

He did not cry out for want, for loss.

No, he sat down on an empty bed, and watched himself slice open the throat of dead woman. A goat for the alter of an old God,the perfect sacrifice for a hungry God. To pull back the head, expose the neck and the tear it open.

Bask in the blood, kiss the wound.

But don't get your hands dirty.

~~

Soon therapy had become a new place for him, to wander and dance around in the walls of his mind. And spill these crude dark thoughts onto a plaster, finish it with a groan, then serve it up to Hannibal. The man would eat it up like a glut, then praise and drown Will in his affection.

He'd wake up late into the night, with sweat dripping down his body, as the nightmares would leave whispers of their presences on his skin. Walking these hidden paths through the black woods, and wake up in a whole new place. At times like these he would have wished he had tied himself to the bed. But as he looks at the reflection of himself in the mirror, he can see the pieces starting to fall out of place. Like cracks in a teacup, they fall down into that empty void inside of himself, an all consuming hole, mingled with fear and fire.

"Fire is powerful, it cleanses the world of it's misgivings." Hannibal had told him once, as he cooked two suckling pigs over a fire. 

"No...fire just destroys all it consumes." Will had told him.

And the world did burn around him,while his vision started to grow clear.

He could see the ocean pouring out of his body, drown him in it's moans and sighs as he slept. He'd find himself reaching out to these visions, oceans of blood descending on him like a towering leviathan. Dark red waves crushing skull and marrow, its black mouth swallowing flesh and sound.

He often felt like he was screaming into the vast sea of it. Every burst of terror suffocating him further, allowing the red waters to close in. The antlers would rise out from the sea, those white eyes that stared right through his body.

Only Hannibal remained with him.

A shark never leaves the wounded.

He caught sight of the blackfin too late, because next thing he knew the world was crashing all around him. He marched down the roads, parading and screaming in silence, and waited at the altar for his hungry God.

So cruel was that smile,but so fitting for a snake like him. Will raised his weapon, and found himself stabbed in the back.

~~

"Lock him in a cage, let's have a look at his head." They said, and before he knew it he was in a place he shouldn't belong

And for once the world felt safe, balanced.

Those dark things roamed and claimed his cell, crowned himself king of the small space he was given. He would for down as another king turned mad by the blood of his victims.

No matted that he was innocent.

The idea boiled and churned in his stomach, he could wait for the let to slip into place. He could wait until he was free.

And he could watch his friends get eaten by his hungry God.

~~

When Hannibal touched him, it was not the first, but it would be the last. He touched and caressed his cheek like something a lover would do, held him in his worst state, and whispered odes of admiration into his ear. But such false words were cloaked in ice and steel, for he could see the past and the dead, but he could never see the future.

And when the blade struck into his skin, all was at lost.

"I have given you a rare gift, but you didn't want it."

Didn't he?

His voice was silence, words stumbled and mumbled out of breath. Holding in his guts, as he watched his hungry God devour all that they had created. He tool his heart, his life...

Their daughter

"You thought you could change me." The God snarled, hungry and ferocious as Will had always seen him.

"Didn't I?"

Never before has the hungry God found himself shocked, but here in this place he once called his altar, he finds a mix of emotions going through his head. He finds himself sadden, angered, but all together heartbroken. They never told him how easy it was to have your heart broken.

Will had watched his hungry God leave, heart in hand, broken and shattered. The pieces falling to make a path, Will held their daughters bleeding throat, and listened as she took her last breath. Painful as it was to loose her, there was more pain in watching his heart bleed out.

~~

At one point in life, Will had found himself in Death, but he was quick to escape. Hand in hand with the ghost of his daughter, before that gaping black maw had closed down on him. He found himself being born again, out of the stomach of a black stag, one who had stalled the corner of his vision, and lead him through the mist.

His screams were of hungry love and painful loss.

And for a moment of clarity, he sees the ocean.

It calls back to him like a mother to her son, and he can feel her pain. He sighs as she does, groans when she does, because he knows what it is like to lose something so close.

He sets sail at once. When the sun is still high, cool air whisking through his hair. He boards alone, but for the ghost who still follows him. She smiles at him, and looks out to the sea. He wonders if she is searching for Hannibal to.

But aren't all sacrificial lambs, lead blind to the alter?

~~

Will had cut Hannibal's heart heart out, as the man had scared his own. Like two beast with one prey, they had fought for the meal. There was no way for Will to describe the scene Hannibal had left for him.

His heart settled upon the three of swords.

A gift for a broken Valentine.

And so he followed him to the Underworld, and whispered his thanks and forgiveness to an empty alter. For he had no blood or wine to offer his hungry God. He knew that he wouldn't accept flowers or bones, because real God's feed off of blood.

When they met, he had offered Hannibal his forgiveness in the shape of a blade. But had been stopped by a bullet to his shoulder.

"You forgive like God forgives, Will." Hannibal had told him, hot breath, and warm lips ghosted over his. "What's to be done about that."

Will had shook his head, and insulted Hannibal's soul before finding his head carved open.

And the next thing he knew, they were chained together like prized pigs. It ashame, Mason would have made a good pork roast. What a waist if meat.

When Will woke up, he was home. Alone and ridden if his dogs, but Hannibal was there. He was always there. He takes it in, the strangeness of his home with Hannibal standing in it. And he speaks, but not with his heart.

"I miss my dogs. I'm not going to miss you. I'm not going to find you. I'm not going to look for you. I don't want to know where you are or what you do. I don't want to think about you anymore."

The cold, even flatness of Will's voice had struck something in Hannibal.

"You delight in wickedness than berate yourself for the delight." Hannibal had stated.

"You delight. I tolerate."

The cold sting, of rejection.

"Tolerance is a fig leaf to hide your ravenous self from the world."

"I don't have your appetite." He pauses, the air seems stale around him, choking and suffocating. "Goodbye, Hannibal."

Hannibal stands there in utter silence, rejected. Will sighs, averting his eyes, he thinks maybe he will sleep more, or maybe he will find only darkness. When Hannibal leaves, the air thickens, and his heart howls.

He is quick to muffle it.

~~

"Ding dong, the Dragon's dead."

Over the course of three years, Will had found himself constantly thinking about Hannibal. He was like a rock stuck in his shoe, always there to remind him if his presence. And it was no better that his heart would often mourn, he'd find himself awake at night listening to those creaks and cracks that filled his hollow chest.

Molly and Walter were a family, happy and strong together.

As for Will, he was just a lost stray they pulled in from the rain. He would snap and bark, but never bite. They could see his pain and loss, but never got too close to touch it comfort. He'd miss it, the constant presence and touching that Hannibal always relished him with. Filling his belly with warm food, meat made from his victims. Will can remember a time where that would have disgusted him, now he finds any other food he eats to be distasteful.

Now here he stands, next to that hungry God in his alter. Candles a lit, flames chasing each higher back and forth, as he crimes to bring the news of the Dragon's death. Hannibal looks up at him, to see the changes if three years without him, and he smiles.

Nothing has changed in his furious mongoose.

Apparently, he came to sing of the wring news, and opened the cage for the hungry God.

So when they stand over the edge if the cliff, with the moon and the sea their only witness at their Becoming. It is not the beauty of blood and the fireflies dancing around them, like wandering stars, that stops Hannibal's breath. But those two words whispers back to his answering call.

"It really does look black in the moonlight..."

Will felt the touch, those arms and hands wrapping around him. Like wings of an evil angel, hiding him from the world. They caress and touch him, like a lovers hold, but this time they have no blades to bare into one another's skin.

"See Will...this is all I've want for the both of us...for you..."

"It's beautiful..."

A  
N  
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Will gasp and sputters blood and seawater from his lungs, turning to his side so he can breath. His body aches, chest burning for the crisp cool air, and his mind....is silent. He stares into those maroon eyes, like bleeding rubies, they burn watching him.

"Alright, Hannibal.... you've got me...I'm yours." Will calls to the sky, the moon, anyone who can hear his call.

Hannibal coughs, blood comes dripping down his mouth, he smiles at Will. But it is no predatory grin, where he has finally caught his prey. No, his smile is soft and adoring, he reaches over to caress Will's hand. And just lays on the sand, smiling at him.

Will smiles back, his cheek probably rips open a little bit, but he can barely feel the pain over the noise of the sea.

"I'll have to warn you though, I bear....a heavy heart. Can you take the burden to carry it?"

He doesn't have to ask, because he already knows what the answer will be. Hannibal is unpredictable, to others he is a puzzle with invisible pieces, but to Will he is a painting. With hard edges, marble skin and rough texture, all painted in blood and passion.

"Always..."

~~

So here, he sees his story ending, the final pages coming to a written end, and the book will finally close. Will finds himself in a new world now, one of gold and red, a new color to shine on his once black and white life. It spreads like a fever, the summer heats of Louisiana. But there is no pain to come along with these fever heats. Instead he finds himself enjoying the sun on his pale skin, the fitted meals made warm and eaten at dinner, and for once all the pieces of the teacup seem to come back together

There is a Japanese tradition called, Kintsugi.

A type of craft where they fix broken pieces of glass, and mend them together with gold. It's the only way Will can describe is Rebirth, following around this man he once saw as a monster, but has now come to know him as more. Friend, companion, partner, lover. Hannibal had taken his hand, and lead him through these gates of death and gloom, and instead showed him a place all dressed in red and gold. He would find the man coming home with more of his broken pieces, only to grasp his hand and mend himself back together with gold.

"What are you thinking of now, WIll?" Hannibal asked, walking up behind him, as he stood at the end of the dock.

The sun was bright this morning, so bright that Will had had to walk around with sunglasses on, but now the moon has risen. And with all her beauty, she has casted a soft glow of light down upon the ocean. He listens to those familiar groans and sighs, it's tides pulling and pushing him to and fro. And yet, he finds himself anchored to the ground.

"I have been thinking of us, and the ocean...It's beautiful. With how vast and mysterious it is, funny to think that such a place would give birth to monsters like us." Will chuckled, dipping his toes into the waves.

"The ocean is said to be the birthplace of all living things on this place, who ever said it would only give birth to monsters." 

"I did."

"Do you truly believe us to be monster, Will?"

"Yes and no, but I can see though our mask, and I can see these mended pieces of gold. We've scratched and clawed at each other until we bled, but even so we didn't give up on our love and hatred for one another." He sighed, feeling those familiar tugs and kisses at his feet. "The ocean gave us a second chance, to see the beauty in each other, and to embrace the darkness as well."

"And have you."

"Always."

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and commenta are loved!!


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